Attempted bomb plot

Put that the impression had been given by Downing Street that intelligence was handed to the US authorities ahead of the attempted bomb plot and asked if that was the correct impression, the PMS said that at yesterday’s press briefing he had talked about the assumption that the individual concerned was radicalised after he left the UK and that the reason he wasn’t allowed to travel back to the UK was because of the visa situation.

The PMS went on to say that he was also asked yesterday about the evidence of what the individual concerned did when he left the country and that the answer to this was that we knew that he went to Yemen.

The PMS said that he was limited in terms of what he could say but would say a few additional words due to the degree of interest. First of all, we routinely exchanged large quantities of intelligence with the US on a two-way basis so that we could build up a shared picture of the potential threats we faced. Since the Detroit incident, working closely with our American colleagues, our intelligence agencies had built up a fuller picture of a suspect in that case. As was usual, this information had been shared appropriately. There was absolutely no suggestion that the UK passed any information to the US that they did not act on. We worked very closely with the US on all counter-terrorism matters and it went without saying that the Prime Minister enjoyed an excellent relationship with President Obama, as did Downing Street and White House officials.

The PMS said that it would not be appropriate for him to make any further comments on intelligence issues.

Put that the position had slightly changed since the statement this morning, the PMS said that as was usual, this information had been shared appropriately and would continue to be shared appropriately; there was nothing to read into that.

The PMS continued by saying that there was an ongoing exchange of intelligence and repeated what he said that we knew definitively that he left the UK in 2008. Talking further about intelligence matters was not appropriate, but we wanted to underpin that there was no suggestion that any information that would have been passed to the US was not acted on.

Asked if the PMS’s words at yesterday’s press briefing had been misinterpreted, the PMS said that he stood by what he said in the press briefing yesterday and what he said was that we were pretty certain that the individual in question had been radicalised outside the UK when he left the UK in October 2008.

The PMS continued by saying that if he went any further at this stage, even to comment on what could be a misinterpretation, it became more difficult. The key point to underpin was that there was absolutely no suggestion that any information we might have passed to the US was information that they didn’t act on.

Asked if the term having contact “with people” meant “with radicals”, the PMS said that the sort of things that people would be interested in about an individual like that would be contact that was made with people that might not have the best interests of the country at heart.

Asked if the PMS had said yesterday that the information about the period in which the Detroit bomber had been making contact with people had been passed to the Americans before Christmas day, the PMS said no, that was not what he had said.

Asked if that information was passed on before Christmas day, the PMS said that he would not go beyond what had already been said as these were such delicate and important issues. Counter-terrorism was an evolving issue and there were lots of other aspects of the Government’s attack on counter-terrorism, whether it was the introduction of airport scanners or other initiatives. This was never going to be something we could deal with by just looking at one aspect; we had to look across the piece.

Put that clarification was needed as to whether or not information about the Detroit bomber was passed to the US before Christmas day and that The Telegraph had written about this today and was widely read in the US, the PMS said that whether or not The Telegraph was widely read in the US was not for him to comment on and that he would not say anything further than had already been said this morning.

Asked what the PMS had meant yesterday when he mentioned “lessons learned”, the PMS said that the attempted attack had failed and we must all be very grateful for that; we needed to learn from incidents like this and work out what could have been done better. What the Prime Minister had announced in relation to airport security was something that we would not contemplate on introducing if we hadn’t seen the reality of the risk presented by this particular episode. The Prime Minister was conscious that we had to do this as quickly as possible and of the sensitivities around the introduction of airport scanners and the balance between helping people travel and protecting people.

The PMS continued by saying that we had to come back to the fact that this was an attempt that thankfully failed and we must, as an international community, think of all the ways in which we could mitigate the possibility of it happening again.

Asked if the PMS had been referring to intelligence when he mentioned “lessons learned”, the PMS said that he was making a general point that one of the lessons that came out of what could have been a terrible tragedy was the question of how we continued to share intelligence about individuals who may have these kinds of nefarious objectives in mind. With any issue like this the UK, US and elsewhere, had to think about how we could mitigate against it happening again.

Put that the PMS was saying that the US acted on whatever information the UK had given them because we didn’t want a diplomatic incident, the PMS said we wanted to make very clear that there was no suggestion that the US did not act on any information that may have been given.

Asked if it was right to say that routine information about the Detroit bomber had been sent to the US before the incident and “hot” information about him that would set off alarm bells had been sent to the US after the incident, the PMS referred to his original words and said that clearly a fuller picture could be gained of an individual once they were in the public domain.

The PMS went on to say that he did not feel it was appropriate to make any further comment about the nature of the intelligence. The concept of building up a shared picture was a very important part of intelligence gathering and sharing.

Asked what the PMS meant by saying that the US “did what they needed to do” with whatever information they received, the PMS said that it was not for him to comment on what US security officials might do. What we were saying was that there was no suggestion that we passed any information to the US that they didn’t act on.

Put that the impression had been made that the US acted on what the UK told them, the PMS said that that was not the way he put it. We were saying that there was no suggestion that the UK passed any information to the US which they did not act on.

There was an implication that there might have been information that was passed on to the US that should have been acted on, but from the UK perspective that was not the case.

Asked if intelligence was passed to the US about the Detroit bomber before 25th December, the PMS said that the UK and US routinely exchanged large quantities of intelligence on a two-way basis so we could build up a shared picture of the potential threats we faced. Since the incident we had been working with our American colleagues and intelligence agencies to build up a fuller picture of the suspect.

Asked if the White House had been in touch since yesterday’s lobby briefing, the PMS said that we were in regular touch with the White House.

Put that the PMS had spoken earlier of a “Downing Street/White House” perspective, the PMS said he had wanted to re-emphasise the fact that the Prime Minister shared an excellent relationship with President Obama and relations between Downing Street and the White House were equally strong. There was regular contact between Downing Street and the White House at all levels.

Asked if the White House had been anxious for Downing Street to clarify the position after yesterday’s press briefing, the PMS said that he was sure that they had been reading some of the comments about this issue and would want to make sure that there was no misunderstanding.

The PMS went on to say that he was sure they would acknowledge that there was only so much that either party could say.

Asked if the statement from Downing Street had been run by the White House first, the PMS said that we were in constant touch with them about this and other issues.

Put that the PMS had said that there was “no evidence” that the US did not act on anything that was passed on, the PMS said that what he had said was that there was no suggestion that the UK passed any information to the US which they did not act on.

Asked if the Prime Minister had spoken to President Obama in the last day, the PMS said no but there was regular contact between officials.